History of Rail Transport in Australia - Development of State-based Networks

Development of State-based Networks

Railways in Australia date from the 10 December 1831 when the Australian Agricultural Company officially opened Australia's first railway, located at the intersection of Brown & Church Streets, Newcastle, New South Wales. Privately owned and operated to service the A Pit coal mine, it was a cast iron fishbelly rail on an inclined plane as a gravitational railway.

The earliest railway in South Australia consisted of the seven-mile horse-drawn freight line between Goolwa and Port Elliot in South Australia, which began service on 18 May 1854, allowing steam ships to avoid the treacherous mouth of the Murray River. The first steam locomotive began service soon afterward between Sandridge (now Port Melbourne), and Flinders Street, Melbourne.

In 1848, the Sydney Railway Company was established to connect Goulburn and Bathurst to Sydney, mainly to convey wool for export to the United Kingdom. It had considerable difficulty raising sufficient funds to commence construction and none of the proposed standard gauge (4 ft 8 1⁄₂ in (1,435 mm)) line was opened until 1855, when the line was opened between Sydney and Granville in what is now Sydney's western suburbs, the first section of what is now the Main Southern line. In fact, the Sydney Railway Company went bankrupt building it and as a result the line was taken over by the government, leading to the establishment of the New South Wales Government Railways. Part of the reason for the delay in starting construction and the Company's eventual bankruptcy and was the start of the Australian gold rushes in 1851—these created a labour-shortage and forced up prices. In fact the railway did not reach Goulburn until 1869 and Bathurst until 1876, both lines having had to cross difficult topography.

Victoria was the main beneficiary of the gold rushes, with the major discoveries in Victoria and Bendigo (then called Sandhurst) in 1851. While this also created a labor shortage in Victoria, it also caused great development in Melbourne, first settled in 1835 and declared a city in 1847. As a result Australia's first steam-powered railway was a suburban line opened by the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company from Melbourne to Sandridge (now Port Melbourne) in 1854. This line and almost all subsequent Victorian lines were built to broad gauge (5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm), gauge). In 1856, the government-owned South Australian Railways opened its first line (1600 mm gauge) from Adelaide to Port Adelaide. The three major Australian colonies at the time failed to follow advice from the British Government to adopt a uniform gauge in case the lines of the various states should ever meet. The original Irish engineer, Sir Francis Shields persuaded the Parliament of New South Wales to require that all railways in the colony be of the Irish broad gauge. Subsequently a Scots engineer persuaded the legislature to change to standard gauge. Unfortunately New South Wales failed to inform Victoria and South Australia of the change until, after the other states had ordered broad gauge rolling-stock. Both states subsequently refused to follow this change.

Queensland's first line (3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge—known in Australia as "narrow gauge") from Ipswich to Bigge's Camp, the first stage of a railway between Brisbane and Toowoomba, opened in 1865. This gauge was intended to save money and was subsequently followed by Tasmania and Western Australia. As a result, in the middle of the 20th century Australia had almost equal amounts of each gauge. Tasmania's first (1600 mm gauge) line opened in 1871 from Deloraine to Launceston and was converted to 1067 mm gauge in 1888. Finally, Western Australia opened its first Government-owned line in 1879 between Geraldton and Northampton. Lines spread in all the states from these first lines, connecting ports to farmland and ports.

The mainline systems of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland met (albeit with three breaks of gauge) in the 1880s. Only Victoria and South Australia shared a common gauge, and even so they opted to change engines at the border. The other mainland colony, Western Australia, was isolated by 2,000 km of desert. The first break of gauge was created when the New South Wales and Victorian lines met at Albury in 1883. The railways of Victoria and South Australia meet at Serviceton in 1887, but these lines were both broad gauge. In 1888 the railways of New South Wales and Queensland meet at Wallangara. Meanwhile, in 1889, the first line (1067 mm gauge) in the Northern Territory was opened from Darwin to Pine Creek. In 1914, an eight kilometre extension of the New South Wales Railways from Queanbeyan to Canberra was opened to create the Australian Capital Territory's first and only line.